ANNUAL REPORT JULY 1, 2017–JUNE 30, 2018 JULY 1, 2018–JUNE 30, 2019 Compiled by the Souls Grown Deep Foundation & Souls Grown Deep Community Partnership www.soulsgrowndeep.org ATLANTA 1040 W Marietta Street NW Atlanta, GA 30318 NEW YORK 10 Liberty Street, Suite 24G TABLE OF CONTENTS New York, NY 10005 PARIS Preface | 5 42, rue de la Tour d’Auvergne 75009 Paris, FRANCE Executive Summary | 6 © Copyright 2019 Souls Grown Deep Foundation & Community Partnership | 20 Souls Grown Deep Community Partnership All rights reserved. No part of this book may be Foundation | 21 reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or Collection Transfer Program | 22 otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Museum Exhibitions and Displays of SGDF Works | 26 Souls Grown Deep Foundation & Souls Grown Deep Community Partnership. Internship Program | 28 All photography by Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio Deaccessioned Artworks | 31 unless otherwise noted. Endowment and Grant Recipients | 64 Printed and bound in Canada in 2019 by the Prolific Group Statement of Finances | 67 Design by iota (www.iota-books.com) Souls Grown Deep in the Media | 68 Front cover: Board of Directors | Staff, Fellow, and Interns | 71 Thornton Dial, Art of Alabama, 2004 Wood, steel, clothing, concrete sculpture, wire, oil cans, bottles, glove, license plate, found metal, paper collage, enamel, spray paint, and Splash Zone compound 129 x 40 x 66 inches Collection of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation © Estate of Thornton Dial / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY Page 4: Ronald Lockett, The Enemy Amongst Us (detail), 1995 Paint, pine straw, metal grate, tin, nails, on wood 50 x 53 inches Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation © Estate of Ronald Lockett / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY 2 PREFACE In 2010, 1,300 artworks were donated by collector William S. Arnett to a newly formed Souls Grown Deep Foundation (SGDF). The gift included nearly every object that had to date been exhibited or published, representing the entirety of “museum-quality” works by African American artists accumulated in the course of his travels across the Black Belt of the American South. The goals of Souls Grown Deep were bold. The Foundation was born of a belief that art history needed to be rewritten to include the creativity of some 160 artists of the 20th century who had toiled in oppression, poverty, and obscurity, far from the mainstream art world. SGDF was formally incorporated in the state of Georgia on January 21, 2010. During its first four years, its activities were dedicated to the documentation and care of the collection, and to supporting a series of exhibitions: Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial (2011), Creation Story: Gee’s Bend Quilts and the Art of Thornton Dial (2012), and Thornton Dial: Thoughts on Paper (2012). SGDF then turned to its next objective: prompting a revision of art history by museum curators, academics, and the press. To accomplish that, the Foundation advocated the display of works by these artists alongside already lauded protagonists of Post-War American art. In May of 2014, the Foundation was led by Trustee Michael Sellman to donate 57 works of art to The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Modern and Contemporary Art. This acquisition was subsequently heralded in the Met’s landmark exhibition History Refused to Die: Highlights from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation Gift (May 22–September 23, 2018). Over the course of 2014–2016, the Foundation clarified its potential and aspirations. With the expansion of full-time staff in June 2016, including the undersigned, the Board approved its Collection Transfer Program, a multi-year program to transfer hundreds of artworks to dozens of museums. The Collection Transfer Program was conceived to generate much-needed revenue for the conservation, storage, docu- mentation and promotion of the Souls Grown Deep collection. The program has also enabled the start of grant-making to improve the quality of life of the communities that gave rise to the art in the Foundation’s care. This report recounts the past two years of Souls Grown Deep activities and its emergence as an artist-focused foundation dedicated to righting wrongs both reputational and economic. ACE Maxwell L. Anderson PREF President | 4 5 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2017–2018 HIGHLIGHTS and persistence bore fruit in the Revelations exhibition, described by San Francisco Chronicle The 2017–2018 fiscal year was book-ended by art critic Charles Desmarais as “… an engaging two landmark exhibitions. Revelations: Art from look at a moment in American art that looks in- the African American South (June 3, 2017–April 1, creasingly significant with every passing year.” 2018), celebrated the debut of a major acquisition In 2018, several other museums acquired of 62 works from the Foundation by the Fine bodies of work from the Foundation, including Arts Museums of San Francisco. The fiscal year Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, the New Orleans concluded with a much-heralded exhibition at Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of The Metropolitan Museum of Art drawn from its Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and the acquisition of 57 works, titled History Refused University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s to Die: Highlights from the Souls Grown Deep Ackland Art Museum. Each institution brought a Foundation Gift (May 22–September 23, 2018). unique focus to the works acquired, and already The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco had a long history with the collection. (FAMSF) had long been in dialogue with the The New Orleans Museum of Art had earlier Foundation. Curator of American Art Timothy acquired a work from the collection by Thornton Burgard was an early, informed, and enthusiastic Dial commemorating Hurricane Katrina and Revelations: Art from the African American South, 2017, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, title page featuring: advocate of the artists whose works ultimately has a demonstrated commitment to the field, Ralph Griffin (1925–1992), Noah’s Ark, c. 1980, found wood, nails, and paint, 18¾ x 69 x 14½ inches found a home in FAMSF’s de Young Museum. having long celebrated artists working outside COLLECTION OF THE FINE ARTS MUSEUMS OF SAN FRANCISCO, MUSEUM PURCHASE AND GIFT OF THE SOULS GROWN DEEP FOUNDATION The Museums’ director Max Hollein embraced the mainstream art world, especially those from © ESTATE OF RALPH GRIFFIN / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK Burgard’s efforts, and the curator’s determination the American South. The Montine McDaniel Freeman Director of the New Orleans Museum exhibition Fever Within: The Art of Ronald Lockett, of Art, Susan Taylor, championed her museum’s curated by Bernard Herman and drawn primarily 2017 acquisition in various contexts, including from the Souls Grown Deep collection, which the city’s tercentenary celebrations. opened at New York’s American Folk Art Museum Rand Suffolk, the Nancy and Holcombe T. (June 21–September 18, 2016) and subsequently Green Jr. Director of the High Museum of Art, and traveled to the High Museum of Art, before curator Katherine Jentleson made a persuasive closing at the Ackland. case to acquire exceptional examples of the Souls The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts joined Grown Deep collection, and gave several of them the list of museums making significant acqui- pride of place in the High’s reinstalled permanent sitions for its influential permanent collection. collection. Displayed alongside works by Robert The Museum’s Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Rauschenberg, Thornton Dial’s work was given Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Valerie its due in the Foundation’s hometown. Cassel Oliver, serves on the Souls Grown Deep Professor Bernard Herman, a trustee of Souls board, and assembled a group of works that add Grown Deep, built on his early advocacy in significantly to the Museum’s large holdings of attracting the Foundation’s archives to the Wilson American art. Her director, Alex Nyerges, was Library’s Southern Folklife Collection in the instrumental in bringing these works to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and largest art museum in the South. prompted the Ackland Art Museum’s acquisition. The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s acquisition The Ackland anticipated its acquisition with the in January 2018 represented a watershed for the EXE | CUTIVE SUMMARY < History Refused to Die: Highlights of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation Gift, exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 22–September 23, 2018 PHOTO: SCOTT BROWNING 6 7 Foundation, with the validation of another of the world’s leading encyclopedic museums, following that of the Metropolitan and San Francisco’s Fine Arts Museums. Timothy Rub, George D. Widener Director and Chief Executive Officer, was a strong advocate of the acquisition, and devoted much time and effort to giving it pride of place in the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s storied holdings. In the autumn of 2017, Souls Grown Deep initiated a strategic planning process that cul- minated in the Board’s adoption of a three-year plan in May 2018. The plan highlighted four primary goals: • Enhance the recognition of artists in our collection • Focus on financial strength and stewardship Reinstallation of the High Museum of Art’s permanent modern and contemporary galleries. Left: Thornton Dial’s Crossing Waters, 2006–2011; right: Thornton Dial’s Driving to the End of the World series, 2004 BOTH COLLECTION OF • Focus on leadership in research THE HIGH MUSEUM OF ART, MUSEUM PURCHASE AND GIFT OF THE SOULS GROWN DEEP FOUNDATION; PHOTO: SCOTT BROWNING and education • Realize positive economic and social outcomes for the collection’s artists exhibition Outliers and American Vanguard multiple museums, Souls Grown Deep is intent and their communities Art (January 28–May 13, 2018).